It's Official: Architects Love San Francisco

Published at 1:40 PM PDT on Jul 29, 2009 | Updated at 2:21 PM PDT on May 5, 2009

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The San Francisco skyline near North Beach features several unique looking buildings.

Here we go: the big name architect types are in town, and their judgments of San Francisco fall like a harsh rain.

The city is overwhelming for its ... "natural beauty and the sculpture of the man-made terrain."

Another says: "Essentially it's the fabric. I love to walk around." Say what?

John King's latest column pivots on the crucial difference between local architects (perhaps including the armchair variety) and the visiting species: the former grouses about our uninspired— or overly inspired, as the case may be— designs, the latter rides the cable car, mouth just slightly agape, perhaps with camera dangling from neck.

According to J. King, they're loving the city and the "settings where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts." (Change of heart? Just six months ago the city was more about the parts than the whole. But we digress.) More adjectives: "blown away," "civilized," "good contemporary design all over," "so clean." Then again, this one's from Detroit.